Friday, September 2, 2016

Tuesday, August 30, 2016 Back to the Grand Tetons


Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Last night, my paternal human was purring really loud.  My maternal human went and slept on the little bed in the other room.  It is small, but there is just enough room for me to snuggle in.  But I have to do double duty snuggling with both humans in different spots.
This morning's walk took me into the town of Victor.  Little stores, a bank, some fishing shops.  It is not yet 8am, and lots of traffic.  Many fire service trucks pass me by.  Well, we are not going in that direction today, so hopefully, we won't have any issues.

We both get back to Hannah, shower, and get her ready to go.  We will eat later, but let's get on the road.  The pass over to Jackson, Wyoming goes over a mountain pass through the Targhee National Forest.  It is quite gentle going up, but a 10% grade going down for several miles.  Our truck (I have decided to name our truck 'Jack' after Jack Lemmon.  We got it on the lemon law, so it seemed appropriate).  Anyway, Jack has some great breaking abilities so we could handle the grade with no problem.  But about 3 miles down, there is a truck braking ramp.  Now, let's think about that... You are going down a killer grade with no brakes, and you have to make it 3 miles around sharp curves, then you have to cross the road - hoping there is no traffic coming the other way - to get to the brake ramp.  Really?  Sounds like a horror flick to me!
We have to head through the heart of Jackson to get on the road to the Tetons.  It isn't even 10 am and it is crowded with cars!  Is something going on? 
Once on 191, we pass the elk refuge and miles of beauty.  The Grand Tetons are rugged mountains carved by glaciers.  They tower over rivers and meadows.  There is a hint of smoke in the air from a fire in Yellowstone.  Supposedly, they just opened the southern road into Yellowstone today.  We check out a couple of the campgrounds, but find the one we stayed in 3 years ago.  It is the Coulter Bay Campground.  There is a full service RV park, but we don't even try to get into that.  Last time we checked, it was booked a year in advance.  The sites are nice there, woodsy, and you have a little room.  But there are lots of rigs.
We prefer the campground over the RV park because they have a loop of sites that are huge, and they have electricity.  We had to fenagle a site in the J loop because there are fire evacuees there.  They also save a couple of sites in case a disabled person shows up.  But, there were some people scheduled for late checkouts, so they gave us one of the sites scheduled for the disabled, knowing that others would be available later today.  I doubt the ones they save for the disabled are used too frequently, so I am sure they know what they are doing.
For us, we can deal without water and sewer.  We filled Hannah to the brim with water which should last a while.  We are right next to a bathroom, so we can use that to some extent.  When we were in North Fork, we used water and the toilet frivolously for 5 days and didn't have to drain the tanks, so we ought to be ok being a little conservative.
We disconnected Hannah, and went back down to Jackson to walk around.  We pass a heard of buffalo.  Looking behind, we see the smoke from the fire at Yellowstone.  It doesn't look good. 
 Jackson is a western town run amok.  It has fine art galleries, exclusive furniture and, of course, souvenirs.  If something is worth $25, it will certainly cost $40 or more in Jackson.  It is a cute town, with nice restaurants and taverns.  They have a real grocery store with great selections of foods.  It is a fun place to walk around, but not a place to actually buy something.




After we left  Jackson and headed towards Hannah, we noticed the smoke from Yellowstone was even worse.  We are planning to be here for 6 days... I wonder if that will really happen???

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